Loving music may be innate to the human brain

They say music is the universal language of mankind. There may be some scientific backing to this saying.

May 02, 2024

Feature of the week

Human brains may have evolved to innately love music

The old saying that music speaks to all mankind might have some scientific backing to it. A recent study published in Nature Communications suggests that human brains are naturally wired for music, even before we hear it. 🎶

To conduct the study, researchers from South Korea used an artificial deep neural network (DNN) designed to mimic the way the human brain learns and processes information. Interestingly, the researchers found that certain neurons within the DNN became active only when processing music—and that when these same areas were blocked, the DNN struggled to recognize other non-musical sounds.

Their findings suggest that our brains may have evolved to develop a music-selective system that helps us better understand the real-world sounds around us.

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